Everyone’s thinking “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” right about now, but I still can’t help but feel so betrayed.

You don’t really get to pick the teams you love. I mean, you do, obviously, but at the same time what rational human being would continue to love a team like the Marlins? Two World Series titles are rather nice, but every other year in the team’s history has been fairly miserable thanks to fire sales and borderline duplicitous frugality.

When you’re a kid and you love baseball and a team finally starts operating in your town, that’s a huge event. The Marlins have held a special place in my heart since 1993, but the trade…oh, that huge trade with Toronto. We’re sending them Josh Johnson, Mark Buerhle, Jose Reyes, Emilio Bonifacio, and John Buck and getting Yunel Escobar plus prospects/cheap players in return. Thanks for ruining the 20th anniversary of the team, Jeffrey Loria. Thanks for lying and tricking us into thinking the team had changed last year. Thanks for nothing.

I can no more change my favorite team or favorite sport than I could choose to stop breathing oxygen, but you’ve gone and taken 2013 from me, Jeffrey Loria. The thing I look forward to the most every year, baseball season, just feels so empty right now.

I'm not actually as happy as I look in this photograph at all. Actually, I'm kind of bummed about the end of the Rays season (Photo courtesy DJOtaku)

It’s not completely over, since I will still watch games in the playoffs and the World Series, but for the teams that I truly care about the season is over.

The Rays lost to Texas 4-3 this afternoon, but I’m not gonna mope. Instead I’m gonna talk about what this season meant to me.

As the last season for the Florida Marlins, my hopes were high in April. The Fish were the edgy pick to sneak into the playoffs and dominate. Then things got kind of bad quick. Chris Coghlan was supposedly better, but then he wasn’t performing, got hurt again, and was sent down to the minors. Our third base prospect, Matt Dominguez, had his elbow shattered by a pitch and hit the DL as well. Josh Johnson and Hanley Ramirez both had extended DL stints and, worst of all, Florida went 5-23 for the month of June. Five wins in the entire month.

I don’t quite know what I was expecting, but I didn’t want Florida to limp into the gate in dead last, four games behind the Mets. Before June, Florida flirted with first place! Now that’s over. The Florida Marlins, as I knew them, are no more. Two World Series wins (1997 and 2003), countless frustrating, but fun seasons and, despite how great the stadium looks, I’m supposed to be getting excited to see this godawful logo representing the team next year?

Florida has always been a controversial team. Their attendance is low, their budget is low, they pocket revenue sharing, and they sell off their talent when it gets old and expensive. Owner Jeffrey Loria plans to change a lot of that now that the new stadium is secured. The Marlins were never Florida’s team. Despite their success and a population that adores baseball everywhere but in Florida, they just didn’t capture the state’s imagination. I hope that narrowing the focus to Miami can fix that. I hope that the Miami Marlins are not the black sheep of the National League because they are my team, I love them, and they have shaped me as a person and a sports fan.

As for my AL team, the Rays had themselves quite the season. Started out 1-8 and finished the season with 91 wins. 91 wins! Their fairy tale win against the Yankees propelled them into a killer first game against Texas, but they just couldn’t get those bats going hard enough from Game 2 onward. These guys have money issues, but they are so intelligently run that it’s truly impressive. If Tampa Bay can keep this up they will have a World Series title one day. I just hope they know that if they end up challenging Miami for it I will hope that they get swept.

Not the same at bat as last night, but you get the idea (Picture courtesy DJOtaku)

What an amazing night! Wow, that was fantastic! I was just on the edge of my seat all last night…

My evening began with the final Marlins game of the year against the Nats. It was the end of an era, really. The Florida Marlins are technically no more (they’re officially no more on 11 November) and I wish they closed out Joe Robbie Stadium with a bang, but instead they went out with a whimper. That happens when you face Stephen Strasburg, I guess. Still, listening to Mike Lowell reminisce about the old team and ballpark and just seeing it all finally come to an end is kind of heartbreaking. I hope that the new name reinvigorates Miami like it did for Tampa. I also really hope the “leaked logos” are not the official logos. We’ll see come November.

In bigger news, the Tampa Bay Rays locked a playoff spot in dramatic fashion. They scarily fell behind the Yankees 7-0 thanks to a grand slam by Teixeira and countless other home runs and they didn’t really make a dent until the 8th. Then things started to happen.

The bases loaded. Walk. 7-1. Hit by pitch. 7-2. Sacrifice fly. 7-3. THREE RUN HOME RUN BY LONGORIA! 7-6!

Finally it was bottom of the 9th. Two outs. Two strikes. Dan Johnson steps up and recreates the 2008 magic. Home run barely over the right field fence! Tie game!

Nothing much happens until the 12th. Minutes before his at-bat, the Red Sox manage to lose their rain delayed game to the Orioles in walk-off fashion. Longoria comes up to the plate. Works the count to 2-2. Fouls off a pitch…HOME RUN BARELY CLEARS THE LEFT FIELD WALL! The Rays are going to the playoffs!

It was a wild night with an added bonus: the Braves managed to blow their game too and were eliminated from the playoffs. What. A. Night.

In case you not baseball folks don’t know, the Tampa Bay Rays season all boils down to today. At best they go to the playoffs. At worst they stay home. In the middle is a one-game playoff against Boston.

Just to break it down further.

Best case: Tampa Bay beats the Yankees, Boston loses to the Orioles. Tampa goes to the ALDS.
Middle cases: Both Tampa Bay and Boston win their games or lose their games. They play a one-game playoff to determine who goes to the ALDS
Worst case: Tampa Bay loses, Boston wins. Tampa goes home.

As a lovely little side note, the Braves are in the exact same position with the Cardinals and may lose their playoff berth. God I hope that happens.

So the Home Run Derby is definitely still a thing that happens every year and that I definitely choose to ignore every year, but I can’t help but comment on the fact that the NL selections were obscenely stupid. Rickie Weeks? Matt Kemp? Matt Holliday is a more inspired choice, at least.

So the NL was pretty much only represented by Prince Fielder and barely, at that, although he did tie David Ortiz. If you’re curious, the whole thing was won by Robinson Cano who actually belted the most home runs this year (it’s not always the case).

Tonight we have the much more important All-Star Game, which I am not liveblogging this year. I wish I had a clever excuse like that I’m protesting the game’s location (Arizona), but really it’s just that I’m not watching it solo for once this year and I think I’d be an awkward gametime buddy if I was just blogging away instead of watching. Most of my readers aren’t baseball fans, but to those who are/might be: Enjoy the game tonight. Hopefully the NL wins again.